


Delicate Instruments: Handle with Care

by bluwaterdragoon



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Male/Male, Moth Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Moth!Jon, Moth!Jon Best Jon, No beta we die like real Archival Assistants!, ProbablyVampires, Vampires(?), Yet another one for the Moth!Jon extravaganza
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25489432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluwaterdragoon/pseuds/bluwaterdragoon
Summary: In which Jon could eat Martin for lunch, but is also horribly indebted to him. There may be a moth involved.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 12
Kudos: 118
Collections: Magnus Archives, The Magnus Archives Fanfiction





	1. Don't Stop Me Now

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the Moth!Jon fic! No doubt there will be more edits in the future. Maybe even... more chapters.
> 
> I know what I said in the tags but, as Elias would say, "I lied." 😂 Let me know if you would like to beta read! Probably updating monthly.

Chapter 1

“Don't touch me!” Jon growled at the tempered figure, his voice stifled by the oppressively hot night air. Jon was sweating in his heavy, over-sized brown leather coat. The man-shaped thing before him was standing ram-rod straight, apparently unaffected by the heat. It was as poised and polished as a dagger stood on end.

“That's not your decision to make,” the man-thing rolled the words out like a cashmere carpet, exquisitely refined, but utterly flat. After a pause, as if to consider whether further conversation was worthwhile, it continued with calculated inflections, “You really can't be serious, to just leave. Have you even considered the consequences? I can't imagine it going well for you.”

“More free advice, Elias?” Jon all but spat at the figure. Elias' betrayal of Jon had been the worst kind. Not the sudden, sharp, betrayal of a stake through the heart; but the long, drawn-out betrayal caused by Jon's own slow realizations. Elias had treated Jon and the other vampires under its care with an almost maternal kindness. It was only recently that Jon had seen how little Elias actually cared. Even more recently, that Jon had fabricated a plan to extricate himself from the “nursery” and its layered schemes. He had known Elias would find out eventually and confront him. But, still, he hadn't planned on it finding out so soon.

“Just a warning,” Elias responded impassively and flicked its clawed hands in a dismissive gesture.

“Of what?” Jon asked, in spite of himself.

“Continue down this road and find out.” Elias snapped suddenly, and Jon caught the sharp edge of the man-thing's annoyance. Jon flinched involuntarily. But, Jon had calculated this. Just because Elias had come around at exactly the wrong time, an event which Jon fully believed was anything but coincidence, that didn't mean anything. Jon truly, fully, was leaving. 

“Well, I suppose I'll find out one way or another,” Jon retorted, sardonically. 

Elias' sudden movement was blindingly fast, but Jon had expected it and was already mid-sidestep. With a snap of displaced air Elias' umbral claws missed their target, only raking the cold stone of the old chantry and leaving long, deep, black gashes. Jon flicked out his own claws from their hiding place around the base of his fingers; if he could make Elias think this was going to be a fight, well, then, so much more the opportunity to get away.

Elias sprung again, claws flashing and reflecting sharp angles of cold moonlight. Jon was thin, and has purposefully chosen his outfit that night, as he had on several nights, because he knew the heavy coat concealed his tiny frame. Plan for all the eventualities. He'd learned that one from Elias, one day when the thing was in a teaching mood. Jon leaped back, and Elias' reaching claws caught only the dense fabric of the cloak, which tore away jaggedly under the onslaught. Jon gasped, it was a close call. Elias stopped, frowned, and removed a ripped piece of coat fabric from in between its claws. It was probably going to begin monologuing again, Jon knew, something along the lines of “you know this is futile,” but Jon didn't give it the chance. Jon sprinted away, at full vampiric speed, before the creature called Elias had even opened its mouth, bolting away from the chantry and out into the wide city.

Jon dashed around the side of a building and into a narrow gap at the corner, gasping for air. Elias was fast. Faster than Jon, for sure. A preternatural speed that out-matched even Jon's own. Jon hadn't gotten to go out to the city much during his time in the nursery. Now he was surrounded by beings he'd once considered nothing but inconsequential prey and at any time, one of them could betray his position to Elias, his greatest threat. He shivered in a sweat that had turned cold.  
  
Jon looked down, he stood out too much. The coat, for all its life-saving properties, had to go unless he wanted to be visually clocked by every passerby. He threw it off and into the corner behind him. The night immediately got cooler as the warm air hit his perspiration-soaked graying v-neck. 

“Jon, please be reasonable.” said a voice, calm and collected and far too close for comfort. A late-night passerby, face lit by a smoldering cigarette, treated Jon to a quizzical stare. Jon could feel the hairs on the back of his neck rise. Elias would track him anywhere he ran, probably by scent, if Jon had to guess. He glanced at the passerby. The passerby had apparently decided to give trouble a miss this night and was heading off further down the street. Not that Elias was even going to need scent, a person obviously hiding in a corner wasn't much of a ruse. No, Jon needed a better plan than “run until I'm tired out and let Elias catch me”.

It was a risky move, but it was Jon's best idea. A human-shaped vampire in a corner was suspicious, but a moth, a moth could go unnoticed. Especially if he could hide with other moths. Not to mention, there was a bonus in the form of a lack of scent for Elias to track. He leaned down to smell himself, subconsciously, but stopped short, the sweaty, almost-human smell was obvious. Damn Elias.

Jon stripped down, using the dark corner as cover. The only real problem - well, there were a lot of problems – but Jon's immediate problem was Elias would discover his clothes here and it would know what had happened. Jon grumbled under his breath. Why couldn't things ever be easy? Maybe it just wasn't the vampire way. Things always had to be complicated, nuanced, and entirely a pain. Jon felt a deep longing. One day, when he'd escaped for good, things would be simpler. Straight-forward. Maybe even filled with lights.

The last thought poured through him as he changed into his moth form. He always thought differently in this form. Thoughts were just more moth-y. Or maybe in his human-shaped form thoughts were more human-y. He let that philosophical debate slid out of his physically tiny mind. There were things to do. Predators -Elias- to evade. Lights to find. 

The lights were easy to find. At least three, not including the stars and bright moon, reflected off of seventeen hexagonal eye-lenses and into Jon's mind. He picked the one furthest away from his former hiding spot. He buzzed his wings, heating the muscles for flight, then launched himself in the direction of the farthest non-celestial light.

His wings took him unerringly toward his goal. In a matter of minutes he had joined the vast buzzing swarm of beetles, moths, and mosquitoes around the lamp. He pushed other small, brown, boring moths out of the way. He nearly touched the blindingly bright light. Thankfully, his other more not-moth instincts pulled him just out of the scorch zone. Avoiding Elias like this was like playing one of those games Sasha back at the nursery always talked about. Blend in. Pretend to be a... what was it? NCP? Almost too easy. Moth Jon buzzed around the light again, in quick little circles. The heat felt good and the light was entrancing. A big beetle ran into him mid-flight, bumping him out of his perfect loop. He swatted at it with a wing in irritation and knocked it away. It faltered and fell, its heavy body unsuited to the acrobatic flight Jon and the other moths engaged in. A tiny beetle ventured too close and Jon heard it sizzle on the hot lamp, dropping suddenly to join the litter of bug corpses on the street far below. Jon fidgeted his wings in derision.

He tried to come up with a plan for the future, for when the sun came up. He couldn't fly around this lamp forever. But the thoughts kept slipping away, like trying to daydream coherently right before falling asleep. Moth Jon wasn't very good at long-term planning. That was a benefit to being a moth, Jon thought, a moment's respite from his own thoughts and plans. He lapped the lamp again, the buzzing from the collected insects made his antenna vibrate with their constant low-frequency sound. It was like a harmonic backdrop to each down-stroke wing beat he made. 

Like a 4th chair flautist struggling with the timing, the buzz and beats of the lamp's natural fauna was interrupted by a high-pitched piercing note that set Jon's antenna shaking. Instinctively he froze, and gravity dropped him four feet before he thought to move again. Echolocation! Elias! Shit.

Jon knew, he knew this was bound to happen. Elias' other form, other than the human-like and full monster forms, was a bat-shaped creature. It was no wonder Elias had taken this form, either. He had probably seen the clothes discarded in the corner. Which, Jon realized, mind racing, meant that he had been *close* when Jon had hidden in the corner. Jon flew erratically. His thoughts were a mass of panic, moth instinct, and anger at himself. He'd assumed that this would buy him more time. He should never have been so optimistic. He should have run further. Or flown farther.

The quiet of the night pulled Jon out of his feverish mental state and he realized he hadn't heard the sharp, ultrasonic sound again. With greater mental clarity Jon looked around. Maybe it was just a normal bat. That would be inconvenient, but fine. He could just transform back to his human-shaped form briefly and it wouldn't be a threat. The insects still swarmed the light above and to the left of him. He was too far, too far from the light and the other bugs, his decoys. But locating danger was the first priority. If he flew too close to the light he'd have the protection of the swarm but little else; the light would blind his night vision. He didn't see the slight blurs of dark shapes which would be normal bats. Something was tickling in the back of his mind and he felt uneasy as he rejoined the swarm.

He flew one imperfect lap and started another. Half-way through he realized the problem. There had been only one ultrasonic pulse. He had mistakenly believed this was good news, but given the mass of insects ready and waiting to be a bat's supper, there was no reason why a normal bat would make only one pass. That wasn't like them, from what he knew. He ceased flying and landed above the light, on the lamppost and hunkered down. He folded his wings flat against his back to present as small a profile as possible while he scanned the night sky.

There. It was brief, a shadow against the stars. A deeper darkness against the void of night. The outline of a thing, roughly torpedo-shaped and trailing two long, fanged tails. It was fast; very fast. Jon felt his moth-mind panic, but thankfully its instinct was to stay still. Fight, flight, or freeze was working in his favor. Jon pushed the moth thoughts to the back. A plan. He need a plan. A good plan. A better plan. A fast plan.

Clearly bat-Elias hadn't sensed him yet, or he would have been plucked off the lamp already. So, he was alive; for now. A plan. Jon looked around in desperation. The insects whirled around the lamp; unfazed by the dark shape in the area. A couple of human strangers passed on the street below. One paused in the light to pull out a set of keys but stepped away as soon as she was done; out of the way of any falling bug-parts. The lights of houses and shops lit up the night. There were plenty of dark corners in the city, but a bat-creature such as Elias lived in those dark corners and they would be ill-suited hiding places, even for a tiny moth. Jon briefly considered landing on the ground in a dark corner. Perhaps if he was not airborne he could avoid Elias' piercing screeches and all-seeing gaze.

He remembered in the nursery, he and Sasha had spent months designing a plan. A plan to evade Elias and seek out its master. They had made arrangements with the prey to provide them with disguises, with the promise that Sasha and Jon would let them live. That part of the plan had proceeded suspiciously without a hitch. No, it was when they were on their way out, in full disguise, that Elias had emerged from the shadows just inside the outer gate. It had recognized them and chided them on their foolish ways, as if it had always known and it merely wished them to learn a lesson, like petulant children. The real punishment came later, away from the view of other vampires and separately from one another. Jon did not know what punishment had been wrought on Sasha, but she had refused to speak with him since then.

The thought threw Moth-Jon into despair. Elias knew. It always knew. There was no escape. There was no evading it. It was a bat-creature and he was a moth creature. Predator and prey. His mind overrun with anxiety, he stared unthinking into the night. Within the skyline of the city, the silhouette of a human obscured a lit window, the light cascading around it. And suddenly, Jon had an idea.

He had an advantage over his foe. To even look at Elias, the bat-creature, was to face down madness and terror. It had the same effect on prey as a human head on a spike. But, Jon was a moth. Generally nonthreatening unless he wanted to be, and only gruesome to some humans. Vampires could only enter a human dwelling if its owner invited them in, and only so long as the human did not kick them out. And, for all Elias was a terror that Jon did not even equate with vampires its power was so overwhelming, Jon knew it was of vampire stock. His mind reeled with the implications. If he could find a human to invite him in Elias would never be able to reach him, so long as he didn't leave. Or get kicked out. Another dangerous, hare-brained scheme. Jon was getting good at these, he thought ruefully, pushing down his panic.

It was hard to get the courage to leap off the lamppost. He'd been safe here so far; the Elias creature hadn't seen him. It was tempting, so tempting, to just wait here. Wait for it to leave. Then resume his lamp circles. But that was a moth plan. He'd be completely defenseless if Elias did spot him, and Elias was unlikely to give up. However, his new plan meant he'd have to fly solo, no other bugs or moths to distract the eyes or echolocation, and make himself a target. At least for a moment. More dangerous in the short term but decidedly less dangerous in the long term. Jon mentally whimpered in fear. The silhouette of the human grew less solidly black, as it started to move away from the window, and with it, Jon's chances of salvation.

Jon launched himself off the lamppost, a fear-driven reaction driving his “freeze” instinct to “flight” in overdrive. He flew straight at the window. He heard it again, then, the high-pitched cutting note of echolocation. The sound wa-wa'd erratically off the buildings, as if being produced by a spinning top. 

Jon wasn't able to stop in time and hit the lit window with a bang. It knocked him onto the windowsill where other small bugs crawled. He rolled his head like a drill to shake off the impact and leaped up again, flapping furiously against the glass, mentally pleading that the human inside would see him. And that it liked moths. It was a huge gamble.

He saw from inside the human turned around, startled by the sound of Jon running into the glass. It made its way slowly - so slowly!- toward the window. Jon was panicking. He'd expected to feel the deep gust of wind signaling his demise by the time the human opened the window to see what was going on. He felt a surge of anger towards this prey. How dare it be so inexcusably laconic. It should be so worthy to host him, Jon. And Jon desperately needed to be in the house.

“Oh! What is this, now?” he heard the prey say in a masculine tenor voice, so cheerful it made Jon's wings grind. Didn't it see the dire circumstances he was in?? But of course it did not, Jon was just a big moth struggling to get into a lit area. Jon flapped at the “gate”: the impassible, invisible line delineating the inside of the human's building from the outside. It didn't matter that the window was open, Jon was rooted outside just as much as if the open window had been bulletproof glass. Get on with it! Jon mentally screamed at the human, futilely. 

A sudden screech of echolocation slammed into his back, and he felt his wings' delicate scales distort and fuzz the sound, a desperate attempt to prevent the sound from echoing back to its source. His antenna rippled so powerfully they hurt. 

That's when he felt the wind. Like a whirlpool or black hole, it dragged at his wings, scales and antenna. It was the back draft of heavy wings. Jon's mind went utterly blank with terror. A boom, which to Jon sounded like the explosion of a bomb, went off.  
The resulting silence was deafening. 

Split seconds later Jon regained his senses. He was on the windowsill again. He saw Elias as a colossal dark shadow behind him, wheeling to take another pass. He realized in his muddled confusion that he must've fallen and survived Elias first pass. What was the boom? Had Elias hit the “gate”? 

He heard the human squeak from inside, “Jesus! Was that a bat?” He felt a different, softer, wind push at his wing scales and realized the prey -the human- was leaning out of the window over him, looking around. The wind from its nostrils washed over Jon as it exhaled. Jon, still muddled and confused, walked closer to its body, trying to use the bunched cloth of its clothes pouring over the windowsill for cover. “Oh!” it said, and Jon saw its face, impossibly round and large in Jon's multi-faceted moth eyes, looking down at him.

“You poor thing! Here, quick! Come in here before the bat-” the human started to say, moving its hands toward Jon. But Jon had already whirred into flight at those magic words. “-can get you.” it finished, as Jon blasted past its head in a flurry of dust, wings, and wind. Jon heard a shriek of pure fury from behind him, like a thousand fanged mouths screaming. The ultrasonic sounds reverberated around the room. Jon landed on top of the human's burgundy armchair and curled himself up in a tight ball as the sound echoed on and on. A glass broke in the other room. Eventually, there was silence.


	2. A Nice, Quiet Night In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Martin may have actually succeeded, despite all odds, in having a nice, quiet night in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 of 3-ish maybe!

Chapter 2

Martin put the last clean wine glass on the drying mat beside the sink. He grabbed the hand-towel off of the fridge door and wiped his hands down, humming quietly to himself. It had been a good day, all told. He'd talked to two major business clients and his new boss had complimented him on his quick turn-around of the expense sheets. She'd said the accounting department was very happy. It was always nice to be appreciated for helping folks.

Martin had plans to set himself up for even more opportunities to help folks. Some short term, like getting the next batch of spreadsheet data corrected and sent out in a timely manner, and some long term. Long term, as in the college courses Martin took at at nights after his job; just a Bio 101 or Speech for non-English majors. Small steps, but manageable on top of his day job. he hoped that over time he might accumulate enough credits to get a general biology degree. It was all part of his new plan! To do fun, exciting, and, more so, hands-on work. Spreadsheets were all well and good, and Martin excelled at them, but they were very removed. Very... distant. Martin hoped with a new bachelor's degree he might be able to work more directly, preferably with some real animals. Maybe study wild deer mice, or become one of those people who captured alligators for tagging. Or at least their assistant. It was an ongoing project.

In any event, today was Friday. Which meant Martin had the night off from class. And having the night off meant that he'd had time to swing by the post office, then the library, to pick up a book he'd had on hold. It was a fantasy story about a talking ship, lots of pirates and nautical terms. Martin was looking forward to it; it would be the perfect night in. A nice break from studying and work on the computer.

Lost in his own thoughts, Martin started to wander out of the kitchen, when, unexpectedly, there was a sudden bang at the kitchen window behind him, like when sparrows would run into the glass. Martin turned, half-expecting to see some concussed bird. Of course, the dark square of his window reminded him it was nighttime and the sound was unlikely to be a bird. Maybe a bat, then? It hadn't been very loud, more like a water balloon hitting the pane. 

Curiously, Martin started to walk over, trying to squint through the window into the black. A shape rose up from the windowsill outside, a white orb against the darkness that blurred at the edges. A moth! Martin realized. And a big one, at least as big as the luna moth he'd seen clinging to the ranger station screen door a few years back. That had been when he'd rented a cabin with his friend and coworker, Tim. They'd decided to see the mountains and had rented a cabin in Oregon. It had been a wonderful trip, although by the end of it they'd both tired of each other's habits. Tim liked to play music from his phone without headphones (he'd said at the time headphones hurt his ears) and Martin was pretty sure Tim had gotten tired of Martin's habit of telling him about each page in the book Martin was reading.

The kitchen window was smudged, distorting the shape of the moth even more. Martin tutted at it; he'd have to clean it sometime soon. Another thing to add to the to-do list. Beyond the greasy pane the moonlight was bleaching everything outside the window down to merely shades of black or white. Point in case, the moth was only identifiable by its blurred outline and the slight patter, like that of rain, as it hit the glass with its wings. Martin opened the window to take a closer look; if it was a luna moth that would be exciting, since they weren't typically found in the area. The moth didn't flinch as he slid the window open, rather it stayed where it was at, fanning Martin's face with its rapidly flapping wings. “Oh! What is this, now?” Martin said in delight. He'd expected it to be spooked by the opening window and fly off. This was an unexpected treat.

Martin briefly wished he kept a butterfly net by the sink. Maybe on the hook with the flyswatter? Sort of a life-and-death feel to that. Alpha and Omega. Martin chuckled to himself at the symbology. He briefly considered just cupping the large insect in his hands; if it kept staying in one spot like it was, it wouldn't be difficult to capture. 

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the patch of deep black against the patterned darkness. It was black, oblong, and moving frighteningly fast. Martin instinctively leaned back, into the room, as the dark shape ran full tilt into the win-well, it ran full tilt into something, with a solid *crack*. Martin barely had time to register the winged creature before it careened back off into the night. 

“Jesus! Was that a bat?” Martin exclaimed, and leaned out the window, trying to catch sight of the thing again. The poor thing had slammed into the side of the house, surely if it was still out there it would be dazed from the force of the impact. Martin's heart went out to it. He sincerely hoped that it hadn't been permanently injured. Bats were an important part of the ecosystem and, to Martin's mind, there hadn't been nearly enough of them around as of late. He personally blamed the abundance of mosquitoes each summer on the general lack of bats. The mosquitoes, it seemed, were more and more prolific and had it out for him specifically.

He felt a tickle near his belly on his right side and noticed the the large moth was now apparently trying to burrow under the loose fabric of his shirt. “Oh!” Martin exclaimed as he realized that the bat must've been trying to eat his nighttime visitor. Well, it was the natural order of things. But Martin felt a pang of annoyance. It was all well and good for bats to eat, but this beautiful creature had chosen his window, and he, Martin, wanted to keep it for himself. That was alright, right? There were plenty other moths for the bats to eat. Martin was reminded of a scene from one of his favorite fantasy movies. Yes, why shouldn't he keep it? Not to mention it was adorably trying to use him as cover. “You poor thing! Here, quick! Come in here before the bat-”

He started, but at that moment the moth buzzed upward and blasted past his face, its wings creating a whirling breeze that swished Martin's red curls. He raised his hands in self-defense, “-can get you.” Martin finished lamely. He glanced at it, then did a double-take, as it settled onto his favorite plush armchair.

Martin's face flushed in excitement. The moth had settled where the light from the yellow lamps fully illuminated it, showing off its exotic coloration. It was big for a moth, as large as Martin's hand. And fuzzy. (Very fuzzy, thought Martin.) It had a big puffy body that was all yellow fuzz and pink antenna (Pink!) and little pink fuzzy feet. Martin now recognized that the moth's wings, which had looked white in the pale moonlight, were a vibrant pink and yellow, to match the body.

Martin wanted to whoop in excitement; a Rosy Maple Moth! He'd recognize that color and pattern anywhere. He'd always wanted to see one, and now was his chance! A sound of breaking glass behind him briefly broke his concentration and he turned back to the kitchen. Peeking around the corner into the kitchen he saw that the delicate wine glass he'd just washed had shattered. Its stem lay haphazardly on the counter surrounded by little glass shards. 

Martin frowned, he must've bumped it when he was placing it on the counter. A boring brown crane fly buzzed past him and Martin belatedly realized the window was still open. He closed the window gently with a click. The glass clean-up could wait. He looked back into the living room, hoping the moth was still there.

It was. Definitely a Rosy Maple Moth, Martin thought. There weren't any other moths with that kind of vibrant coloration. It was one of his personal favorite moths. And, he knew, once rated the cutest moth on the internet. This particular specimen was no exception. Hmm, Martin thought. From what he knew, the bushy antenna must mean this specimen was male. But, he'd always thought Rosy Maple Moths were supposed to be small. As in, sit on the tip of your finger small. Maybe it was a mutant? Or a new species? That would make quite the research paper. He wondered if you automatically got all A's in Bio 101 -maybe even an honorary degree- if you discovered a new species.

As Martin walked over to the moth he realized the moth had curled up, as much into a ball as he'd ever seen from a moth, legs tucked under its fuzzy body and its antenna hanging limply. Martin grimaced with concern. Was it already dead? It had looked lively only a moment before. “Hello little guy,” he said quietly. The moth didn't move, or, indeed, make any indication it had heard him. Martin inspected it more closely. He wondered how it held onto the chair, its legs were so far tucked under its belly. Maybe it was sick? Martin's concern deepened. Maybe that's why it had been targeted by the bat; it was already on its way out of this world.

Martin hesitated, then reached out a single index finger. Slowly, ever so slowly, he reached out toward the moth. It took a lot of finesse to be this gentle, and his hand shook slightly from the force of his concentration. He barely felt it when he saw his finger actually touch the giant moth's back. The moth hadn't seemed to notice, either. Applying a little bit more pressure he slid his finger down its thorax, sort of petting it, he thought. He wondered if moths liked to be pet. Probably not. The moth didn't move. Not wanting to break the magic of the moment, Martin whispered at the moth, “Ok, little guy, it's ok. Don't die on me.”

Martin felt a sort of desperate hope. Like any youngster prodding a half-dead bug to see if it would move, he felt, rather than decided, that he should see if he could get it to sit in his hand. “Ok, ok” he crooned at the bug. Placing his hand flat on the chair in front of it, he poked its butt-end to get it to walk forward. The moth freaked out.

Its legs uncurled all at once and it flapped its wings right in Martin's face, causing Martin to let out a startled yell. “Ahhh!” Martin reflexively raised his hands to cover his face. He saw from around his fingers that the moth lost its grip on the chair from the momentum of its own wings. It walk-fell along the top of the chair until it had re-oriented itself and its head was pointed toward Martin. Then it leaned into its own grip, flapped its wings furiously for a second, then neatly folded its wings back behind it. It looked at Martin with antenna held high, on alert. Martin lowered his hands.

“Sorry! I just thought you were dead!” he apologized to it, instinctively. He evaluated the moth with concern, had he gone too far? Was it hurt? The moth appeared, to Martin's untrained eyes, completely uninjured. It stared back at him angrily. ...Angrily? The moth was ridiculous. It resembled a pink-and-yellow cotton ball but Martin got the distinct impression it was glaring at him. An angry cotton ball. He giggled at the thought. “Well, if you're alive, I guess I don't need to bother you anymore.” He said, leaning back and putting his hands on his hips. Martin briefly wondered if moths got parasites, and if so, would it bring them into his house by staying here? Was there a downside to keeping house with an exotic moth species? Martin wasn't sure.

Martin sighed. He supposed he'd settle for an interesting night in, if not a quiet one. Parasites. No parasites. Martin hemmed and hawed. If the moth did bring them inside would they affect humans? What did extra-large Rosy Maple Moths eat? If anything? He had a lot of unanswered questions. Still, he thought, nothing stopping him from making the best of it. A nice, relaxing read. That's what he needed. Put all the questions to rest for now and just focus on a good book. He made his decision and headed toward the other room to get his book. Not, however, without looking back once or twice. 

The moth did not try to fly off or fly into a lamp for that matter, but it did turn so that it was facing him. It would've been eerie, Martin thought, if the moth hadn't been the threatening equivalent of a lint ball. Still, if a lint ball turned to looked at you... Martin chuckled to himself at the absurdity and grabbed his book off the bed where he had thrown it once he'd gotten home. The book had a hard cover, library sleeve, and approximately 400 pages. Martin hoped it would live up to its word count.

Martin brought the book back out to the living room. The moth stared at him. The thought of parasites made Martin queasy but he didn't want to risk the bat eating his new find. Not to mention, he was pretty sure you needed an intact specimen to prove a new species. Not that he seriously thought he'd discovered a new species. But maybe he had.

Normally Martin would sit in his favorite spot, but the moth now occupied the top of the plush armchair and for some reason unbeknownst to Martin, Martin had automatically assigned the whole chair over to the possession of the moth. Not to mention the moth would be directly above Martin's head and out of sight if he sat down in the armchair. Goodness knows what it would get up to. Martin instead elected to take the faded blue loveseat opposite, that way he could keep an eye on this winged visitor. A cranefly buzzed above them around the floor lamps next to the armchair. The moth did not stop its ceaseless gaze.

Martin sat and opened his book. He read the jacket blurb and then started in on the first paragraph. He'd not even read but two lines when he stopped. Martin had the unmistakable feeling of eyes watching him. He looked up from his book and over to the moth. Its beady eyes still watched him. He felt uneasy in his chair, like it expected something of him. “What?” He asked it. It didn't move, except for the slightest antenna quiver. “What do you want?” Martin looked down at the book, then up at the moth again. “Fine. If you're going to just stare at me like that I'm not going to be able to read in peace. So, now I'm going to read to you.” Martin said, pouting and remembering all the trouble Tim had given him for his bad habit. The moth, if it even noticed his tone, did not respond at all.

“Jerica had known of the speaking ships since she was five, maybe even since birth...” Martin began.


	3. Debatably Better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jon must suffer through someone else's idea of a quiet night in.

Chapter 3

The ultrasonic sounds reverberated around the room. Jon landed on top of the human's burgundy armchair and curled himself up in a tight ball as the sound echoed on and on. The sound itself violently shook his antenna hairs and rattled his delicate wing scales. He tried to pull himself in as tight as possible, hiding from it. His mind stopped registering what his eyes were seeing as he tucked his legs in tight. A glass broke in the other room. 

When his various parts stopped shaking from the physical force of the sound, the after-effects, a phantom sound in his head, rolled on and he felt ill. His eyesight returned gradually, first as seventeen blurry images of the prey human's face, uncomfortably close and staring down at him. The thing spoke -Jon could see its mouth move- but Jon couldn't hear it, the false echoes of the screech still clouded his mind. He felt something gently on his back and heard more muffled, indistinct sounds from the human. Eventually, his mind recovered and the sounds pulled themselves together into a softly spoken word as the images coalesced into a single picture of a round, curly red-haired man staring down at him. “Ok.” The man said.

And then it slapped him on the butt.

Jon leaped up and flipped his wings out in one motion, whirring them so fast they blurred. “Ahhh!” the human yelped. The force of the flapping unseated his legs from the chair, which were still partially folded under him and he tripped, falling partway down the chair as wings and limbs flailed to gain purchase. He regained his footing and his composure, and discovered he'd traveled about half-way down the length of the chair-top. He turned and glared at his host. He felt the blood pump in his wings and knew if he was in human form he'd be blushing.

“Sorry! I just thought you were dead!” the human stuttered at him. Then it paused, looking at him intently. Then, it giggled. Jon felt the heat in his wings rise even further. How dare this human look at him and slap his butt and laugh and- Jon collapsed under the weight of his own emotions. He'd evaded Elias, and now he had to put up with tomfoolery from prey that, in his ever-so-recent former life, he'd have eaten on sight. In the span of a few short hours he'd been angry, scared, almost eaten, and now humiliated. It was too much for one moth to bear. He drooped on top of the chair and despaired.

He stared at the human, his mind blank. The human was speaking, “Well, if you're alive, I guess I don't need to bother you anymore. You don't seem hurt, either.” Easy for it to say, Jon thought, abstractly and bitterly. The human acted so blithe. How did it know if he was hurt, anyway? It's not like prey would recognize if his scales had been shaken loose or his antenna hairs were damaged. He glared at it again. It wasn't paying attention to him anymore. It seemed to have momentarily forgotten he existed. Jon bristled. How dare it not even register his presence, he could destroy this thing's life in an instant and- his thoughts trailed off. The human stared at a corner wall in the kitchen, sighed, and ran a hand through its untidy curls. Then it looked at him with worry on its face, then down a hallway, where, presumably, the rest of the house lay. Then, it walked away. Just like that.

Jon glared at its back. He couldn't figure out how to feel about this new circumstance. He had been prepared to adapt to an entirely new way of life once he escaped the nursery, but this wasn't it. Unable to change out of moth form and indebted to a completely random prey hadn't been on Jon's list of things he'd planned for once he made it to “the outside world”. He felt... well, vulnerable? Maybe that wasn't the right word. Jon and the others were always vulnerable in the nursery, completely at the whims of whatever power controlled Elias, and, by extension, them. But that kind of vulnerable meant they had to make plans in the dark -literally and figuratively- and jumped at shadows. This kind of vulnerable... he didn't know what to make of it. It meant sucking up to a controlling presence, yes. He'd still have to somehow, in moth form, convince this human not to throw him out the nearest window. But it also made Jon feel completely out-of-his-element. Exposed. Maybe that was the right word. And there were a host of other new emotions, too. Not unease, but uncomfortable. Not fear, but worry. And not red-faced defiance, but embarrassment. Jon did not like it at all. It felt like being out of control, the exact opposite of how Jon pictured life outside the nursery. He'd expected hardship, yes, but he'd expected hardship where he could call the shots.

The human walked back into the room. Jon leveled his best glare at it. It carried a book, a large one. Back in the nursery Elias or the prey under his control had provided books to Jon and the others. Mostly non-fiction. Jon and the others of course assumed that whatever information they contained no doubt served Elias' purpose in some way. Still, Jon considered them a welcome respite from he and his fellows' other past time. The one where they told each other increasingly outrageous fantasy escape stories. He liked the escape stories but he never had Sasha's creativity or storytelling flair and he could tell he bored his audience.

The human sat down in a seat opposite his own. Jon watched it. It opened the book. Jon could almost sense the deliberateness in which it patently ignored him. It infuriated Jon. He maintained his glare at it. Maybe, somehow, his glare would go right to its brain and it would fear him. Or at least glorify him. Or at least notice him. 

Eventually, it did. It looked up at him with a face which somehow combined exasperation, curiosity, and stubbornness. A sort of half-glare but with only one unkempt eyebrow raised. The creature didn't have what Jon would consider a handsome face, but, Jon thought, looking at it, it had such a repertoire of expressiveness. “What?” “What do you want?” it said. It looked down at its book and then up again. Then, without any input from Jon, it stuck out its lower lip and cocked its head to the side, condescendingly. “Fine. If you're going to just stare at me like that I'm not going to be able to read in peace. So, now I'm going to read to you.” Baffled, Jon had a single thought, What did I do? before the thing started to read aloud.


End file.
